One Platform, Five Systems: Gaining Total Operational Efficiency

Commentary by Bryan Brooks

Share This Post Now!

Operational efficiency is a critical component to the success of your brokerage. As a broker, you want to provide a seamless experience for your agents while performing productively and cost-effectively.

An end-to-end platform that integrates all aspects of your business allows you to scale and grow your business while keeping overhead and costs at a minimum. Gaining total operational efficiency not only keeps these costs down, but also provides a better way to recruit and retain agents.

When you centralize paperwork, communications and operations through a single platform, you give your agents the support they need to be successful through a business model that runs at maximum operational efficiency.

Content Square 1.

Paperless Transactions
The first important tool in an end-to-end integrated platform is a transaction management system. In order to maximize operational efficiency, this system must be paperless. A paperless transaction management system allows for more effective organization and prevents you from having to track and manage stacks of paper. Instead, transactions can be moved digitally from one person to the next, cutting costs, reducing errors and preventing lost paperwork. Once a document is uploaded, everyone has visibility, and if a correction needs to be made, the agent knows immediately.

Accounting
Having an effective accounting tool is essential to help maximize the financial success of your brokerage. Everyone has an accounting software, but not everyone has one that integrates seamlessly into their main operating system. Because of varying commission plans and the complexity of integration, it makes it difficult for brokers to have visibility into their finances. You gain efficiencies and accuracies without having to bounce back and forth between systems that don’t talk to each other.

Agent Education and Career Development
Providing training and education opportunities is a critical value offering. By leveraging an end-to-end platform, you’ll be able to integrate the management of your training from start to finish. It’s important for agents to have easy access to the details and registration for education and training courses your brokerage offers. A quality end-to-end platform integrates your educational calendar with the agent dashboard, so agents can read class information and enroll without picking up the phone.

Content Square 2.

Marketing
Agents are busy all day prospecting, meeting with clients and negotiating deals, so it’s important to provide customizable marketing tools agents can use to effectively differentiate themselves. From an agent dashboard—in our case, RealSmart Agent—agents should have access to the marketing tools and resources they need. They can design and manage drip campaigns and mailers; segment their leads and contacts; and download ad templates, listing presentations, yard signs, business cards, and more.

Metrics to Manage Productivity
At HomeSmart, we follow the philosophy if you do something twice, automate it. We improve on efficiency and productivity with data and analytics. In our business, we measure who our top agent is, how much sales volume we do, how much production we do and how many transactions we do in a rolling 12 months.

The ability to track and manage data at the click of a button is key. Any brokerage with multiple locations can see great value from a system where one central location handles all paperwork within a transaction. Brokers can use this proprietary system to track requests, questions, calls and emails, as well as each step of the transaction process.

Content Square 3.

An end-to-end system that integrates accounting, education and marketing—and has the ability to report metrics—adds tremendous value to a brokerage and its agents.

Bryan Brooks is the senior vice president of franchise sales for HomeSmart International. In his leadership role, Brooks is responsible for spearheading the company’s domestic and international franchise growth initiatives, including mergers, acquisitions, roll-ins and conversion opportunities.

Delegation. Have you stayed far away from the word because you just don't have the time or money to hire help and provide training? Fret not—you can take it one day at a time, and you might already have...